What #Paythepros Means for Magic

I am going to try to keep my opinion on this short and sweet because at this point, everybody and their mother has weighed in on it. As many of you probably know, at the recent Pro Tour Shadows Over Innistrad, Wizards dropped a bombshell on the professional community (check it out here). They were cutting the appearance fees for all Platinum Pros by over 90% next year. Their justification for this was that they were funneling that money into the prize pool for the World Championship creating a $500,000 prize pool for next year’s tournament.

I personally think it is a great idea to raise the stakes in professional magic. One of the issues with magic is that the premier level events just pale in comparison to any e-sports event. League of Legends and even Hearthstone sell out venue as people watch professionals battle it out for prize pools north of $1,000,000. Magic has nothing that comes close to this, our “premier events” have a prize pool that is barely tenth of what most e-sports offer.

However, cutting the professional appearance fee was not the way to go about this. Players have been grinding out pro-points for the past year to get the coveted title of Platinum. Wizards has essentially ripped the rug out from under them. Pros dedicated the time under the assumption that X would be the reward. However, Wizards all of sudden went back on this.

Wizards was pretty quick to respond to the criticism about these awful changes, returning the appearance fee to normal next year and reevaluating the changes in the meantime. However, I think this announcement did something a lot more than make some pros upset. Wizards of the Coast lost the trust of the million of players that they have. This attempted announcement essentially said that Wizards does not have to keep their promises to players and more importantly will do so without getting our opinions.

Returning the appearance fees was the first step in a long uphill battle to regain our trust. A word of caution to you Wizards, we care about our game deeply, please don’t try to pull a quick on us again, or you will lose us.

MTGO Feature Spotlight: Pro Tour Gauntlet

I think one of the most interesting and fun features that Magic Online has added in the past year of so (yes this includes leagues) is the Pro Tour Gauntlet. For those of you who do not know, after each Pro Tour there is an 8 person event that once filled gives you one of the following 16 decks:

1. 1st Steve Rubin: Green-White Tokens
2. 2nd Andrea Mengucci: Bant Company
3. Top 4 Seth Manfield: Esper Control
4. Top 4 Shota Yasooka: Esper Dragons
5. Top 8 Luis Scott-Vargas: Black-Green Aristocrats
6. Top 8 Jon Finkel: Seasons Past Control
7. Top 8 Brad Nelson: Goggles Ramp
8. Top 8 Luis Salvatto: Red-White Eldrazi Goggles
9. 8-2 Patrick Cox: Mono-White Humans
10. 8-2 Rob Pisano: Jeskai Control
11. 8-2 Marcos Paulo de Jesus Freitas: Green-Red Ramp
12. 8-2 Grzegorz Kowalski: Sultai Midrange
13. 8-2 Michael Majors: White Blue Humans 

First of all I would like to say how great Standard is right now, 8 different decks made up the top 8 of the Pro Tour, when is the last time we could truly say that for a standard Pro Tour? I definitely don't remember one. Anyway, the Pro Tour gauntlet is a 3-round swiss event where you are assigned a random top deck to play with for the entry cost of 6 tickets or 60 play points. I think the value on this event is not the best but still definitely worth the experience. The prize payout is basically 30 play points for each win and a QP if you manage to the 3-0 the event. Right before the event starts you have about 2 minutes to check out the deck list and make any chances that you see fit. So what do you all think of this feature? Are you excited to get your hands on the new decks or will you stick to SoI limited? I know I am excited to play a bunch of these this week!

Standard is Dead, Long Live Standard.

Post pro-tour is one of my favorite times of the year. The format has just been broken wide open and it is time to test out all of the new decks that were displayed on the highest level. Today I am going to be sharing a couple of my favorite lists from Pro Tour Shadows Over Innistrad

R/G Goggle Ramp

Prior to the pro-tour I was playing a lot of the traditional R/G ramp deck and I honestly love this new spice to the archetype. One of the biggest issues with playing the old ramp deck came against some of the aggressive decks such as Mono White Humans. This deck sures up some of those issues via the sweet Pyromancer’s Goggles package. Then late game using the goggles to copy a huge Fall of the Titans is such a satisfying feeling. I think ramp will be a contender long into this standard format.

B/G Aristocrats.

Okay, now we are talking. The second list has me more excited about a standard deck than I have been in a long time. This deck reminiscent of the Rally deck of old standard. There are three main kills in this deck that I have found in testing. Zulaport Cutthroat is the primary kill in this deck that just happens to be supported by two of the other finishers in the deck, Westvale Abbey and Nantuko Husk. This deck has an incredible amount of synergy and is likely one of the hardest decks to play in the format right now. I will be attending Grand Prix Toronto and playing this deck. I hope to avoid Kalitas all weekend, that card shuts down this deck pretty well.

PPTQ Top 8 *2nd place*

Earlier this week I made a post about the swiss rounds of a 39 person PPTQ that I played in over the weekend. After a great start and then an almost complete collapse I managed to enter the top 8 in the 8th seed.

At the top tables there was another version of the Blue/White Humans deck that had beaten me in the Swiss and that was what I played against in the first round of the top 8. I was worried that this match up was not going to go well for me because my opponent was playing a little bigger version of the deck I lost to, featuring cards like Dragon Lord Ojutai. Fortunately, I almost felt more favored against this version of the deck. Because they were designed to got a little bigger than the traditional humans deck, they actually made their match up against me worse. A couple of timely Kozilek's Return closed out Game 1 for me. I sideboarded into some Clip Wings while lowering my curve a little bit. This proved to be a winning formula against this deck and I managed to get there in the second game.

During the Semifinals I was paired agains the Black White Eldrazi player that I lost to in the Swiss rounds. This match up felt horrible in the Swiss rounds so I was not very optimistic going into it. Honestly, I am not sure how I won either of these games. I had some incredibly fortunate draws with Chandra, Drawing into more Chandras that closed out game 1. In game 2 I felt that my opponent had an early  concession. I started to Worldbreaker away there lands and they scooped shortly after that but I didn't even feel close to coming back into that game, oh well a win is a win I suppose.

In the finals I was paired agains the Mono Red Eldrazi player that I had beat in Round 3. Unfortunately, I let this get to my head. Going into it my opponent was under the impression that he had no shot and I think I let that get to me. After winning a quick game 1 I kept a really risky hand in game 2 that I was incredibly punished for. Then in Game 3 I kind of just got rolled over vey quickly by an army of Obligators, Thought-Knot Seers and Reality Smashers. In total the entire match was only about 20 minutes long. I came so close to being able to get one step close to playing on the pro tour.

Despite falling just short I think I learned some valuable lessons, I think the big one for me is not to let the feeling like you can't loose a match up get to your head, it will bite your in the butt. It was also just great to be able to get reps in with the deck. I think that ramp will continue to be a solid choice but I could see a world where the humans decks start to take over and push ramp out.

PPTQ Debrief (Pt 1/2)

I recently decided to make the trip home for the weekend. This was in part that fact that their was a standard PPTQ and it seemed like the perfect excuse to head home for the weekend. I had really been enjoying playing ramp in my testing I sleeved up the following 75.

I think ramp is an incredibly solid choice right now and I think this was a good 75 for Day 1 of Standard Tournament.

Round 1 I was lucky enough to get paired with one of my close childhood magic friends... figures. He was playing Black White Control and this game was pretty anti-climactic, Games 1 and 3 my friend kept some questionable hands and got punished in both games. Game 2 I kept kind of a slow hand and he resolved a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar which ended the game quickly.

Round 2 my lucky streak continue, I got paired with my best friend. We both knew each others exact 75's (considering I was running late and he registered my deck for me). I ended up winning this one very easily. My friend was on Black Red Dragons and was quickly overwhelmed by multiple worldbringers. I think the highlight of this tournament was my final game in this match where I resolved a Void Winnower, after the game my friend showed me his hand of triple Chandra and double Dragon Lord Kolaghan.

Round 3 my incredible luck continued, I was paired against mono red eldrazi, a match up that I have found to be close to unloosable for me. I quickly won this match 2-0. At this point I was pretty excited with the deck, I needed to win 1 of my next 3 to be a lock for top 8. But why would I ever just win a match and make it easy for myself?

Round 4 I was paired against a judge I recognized from some GPs. He was on Blue/White humans and we had three very close games where I unfortunately did not get there.

Round 5 my luck continued. I was paired against a player that was playing Black White Eldrazi. Both games I was quickly picked apart via discard spells and a lethal combination of Eldrazi Displacer and Thought-Knot Seer.

Round 6 I was a little titled, this was my final win and in opportunity. Fortunately I was paired with another mono red Eldrazi deck, a match up I was very happy to see. Fortunately it went to plan for once  and I won very easily in two quick games. The combination of Kozilek's return and world breakers often overwhelms the Eldrazi decks.

I was tied wit ha few other players but fortunately I had some really amazing tie breakers so was able to sneak into the Top 8 of this event in the 8th seed. Check out part 2 where I talk about the Top 8 of this event!

Modern Banned And Restricted Updates

The long and anticipated banned and restricted updates are finally here and they bring a lot of welcomed change into the modern format. First and foremost let's get the elephant out of the room. They banned Eye of Ugin, one of the the card that has made the Eldrazi deck such a dominant force in the recent months. There has been some controversy over which of the lands had to go in the Eldrazi deck and I think they made the right choice. It was between Eye of Ugin and Eldrazi Temple and a lot of people feel like banning Eye of Ugin is the wrong choice because of how much it also effects Tron. However, I think that banning the Eye was fine, when they first said they were going to ban something from the Eldrazi Deck, they said they didn't want to completely destroy it. Now I am not sure how real it will be with only 4 of the very powerful "sol lands" but I know that if we only left them with Eye of Ugin it would kill the deck. One of the most powerful things about this deck is that it can turn 2 Though-Knot Seer. But with just Eye of Ugin you need a lot more in order to get this combo out because Eye of Ugin fails to produce the colorless mana needed.

Now on to the even more excited part of this announcements, the unbannings. Both Ancestral Visions and Sword of Meek are unbanned. Visions is a card that people have been begging to have unbanned to try and once again make a blue control deck viable again. With Splinter Twin leaving the format in a previous B&R announcement it killed one of the only blue control deck because without the combo they had a lot of trouble in the late game. Visions once again gives blue decks the reach they have been lacking, drawing three cards late in the game is often enough to pull ahead for a lot of decks. I think the place we are going to see visions fit into is a Blue/White control shell that finishes using a planes walker like Elspeth, Sun's Champion.

The next unbanning I think it not going to have a huge impact on modern, but nonetheless a positive impact. The unbanning of Sword of the Meek seems long overdue as the card has been banned since the inception of the format. Originally, the combo was Sword of the Meek and Thopter Foundry, each turn you would activate Thopter Foundry to sacrifice Sword of the Meek and get a 1/1 Thopter token and 1 life. But because Sword of the meek was in the graveyard when a 1/1 creature entered the battlefield, you could return it to play attached to that creature. This let you activate Thopter Foundry as many times are you could pay the activation cost of 1. This was one of the best decks in Extended but I do not think it will have the same success in modern for a number of reasons. There are a lot more ways to to kill artifacts the did not exist during Extended, Kolaghan's Command, Abrupt Decay, Scavenging Ooze are all main deck ways that disrupt the combo in the format. I would wager that this deck will see some fringe play but not really make the huge splash people are expecting. I think Wizards really did a great job with this set of bannings and unbannings

This is all for this week, what decks will you be testing out with the new unbannings? Do you think Wizards got these B&R changes right?

5 Standard Cards from Shadows over Innistrad

Today I will be talking a little bit about about some of the cards that I think will have a big impact on the first couple o weeks of this standard format. I have done some minor testing with friends and could be totally off on a lot of these predictions but only time will tell, but for now here we go.

1. Tireless Tracker

I really like this card and I would wager that a lot of lower curve green decks will be playing this card. It is always going to be good. Early it is a solid body that is just going to grow as the game goes on. Then late game it turns all of your useless lands into a brand new card. I would not be surprised to see Collected Company Decks start playing this card to start with.

2. Town Gossipmonger

















I think that if humans becomes a strong aggressive deck in the format ( and I think it will be) then this card is going to be very strong. This card may be a little slow to get going but when you do I think that it will demand a removal spell or you will quickly run over your opponent.

3. Archangel Avacyn

This one seems like a no brainer to me. Avacyn is incredible, she is a well costed, evasive threat that all subsequently saves your entire side of the board. I think Avacyn is definitely going to be the real deal and I would not be surprised to see her get even more expensive.

4. Traverse the Ulvenwald

 I think this card is great, early game it will sure up your draws and then late game it will get your bombs. Most decks should be able to fuel Delirium pretty easily so I don't think it is a stretch to have this online by turn 5 or 6.

5. Mindwrack Demon

This is the only card on this list that I am not quite sure on. I think this card will probably be nuts but there is the strong chance that this card just misses and the triggers end up killing you. If somebody can figure out a list for a G/B delirium deck where Gather the Pack can fill up the graveyard then this card will quickly close out games.